Nightmare's BeginningCh4Nightmare's Reign
by Demi Elliott
Summary: Thomas is not handling his new life well. There is no one he can turn to. Thomas needs help! Reviews and suggestions for plot eagerly anticipated.
1. Chapter 1 Nightmare's Beginning

**Note to all: The characters and S.T. Universe are not mine, but the dreams are. **

Nightmare's Beginning by Demi Elliott

For eight years, he had lived mostly in fantasy. Memories of her and his belief in her love kept him striving to survive in his lonely hell. He had been abandoned, left behind on a doomed outpost and his dreams were all that he had. He had gotten used to living with the never ending pain of being alone; he wouldn't have thought it possible that anything could make him feel worse. Until the day he heard voices and ran towards them in anticipation, only to be confronted with …………….himself.

As it had been explained to him later, a strange inexplicable phenomenon had created two men where there had once been one. While he had been stranded and alone, his other self had lived the life he should have had. Reacting on an instinctive level and needing to regain what was his; he fought for dominance over his other self. He even thought for a time, that he could win his life back, until …………………he saw her again.

She had come to him, in the quarters that were assigned to him. It seemed a dream, like so many he'd had before, and he reached out to hold her, touch her, and feel her in his mind. His heart sang with joy as he realized this was no dream, she was real, she was here; and he yearned to feel her love touch his soul once more. Overwhelmed with joy, he sought within for the connection between them and it was in that moment that his dream became nightmare as he found only emptiness. He could not touch her.

Abruptly he realized the reason and accused her of it; of being with his other self. She denied the connection, but he could feel the truth. Unable to accept the end of his hopes, he tried to make her his again. He did his best to show her how he felt; what she meant to him. He begged her to let him in; he needed so much to be with her again. But she kept her mind closed to him and agony burned in his soul at her rejection.

When he was informed that a position had been found for him on another ship; he had no choice but to accept. Owning nothing, with no home, friends or family to call his own; he simply had no where else to go. One last time, he went to her, knowing even as he did so that it was hopeless and asked her to come with him, to be with him. And, as he had always done, he kept his pain inside himself, when she said she could not. The last time he saw her, she was standing in the supportive embrace of his other self.


	2. Chapter 2 Vestiges of Love

**To: Dispatcher 652-I agree with you. Now, I'm toying with putting poor Tom in mandatory counseling as he begins his tour on his new ship.**

**To: Zara08-Thanks for the nice review. It's taken me a while to get the courage up to post my stories and I appreciate hearing from you.**

**To: Fred27-I know I've lurked for awhile. It's nice to know someone likes my attempts to share my stories.**

**Note to all: The characters and S.T. Universe are not mine, but the dreams are. **

**Vestiges of Pain by Demi Elliott**

**In his dreams, she called him Will. His dreams were all that he had left of her; or for that matter, of himself. Events had happened so fast, that in a matter of days, he had been rescued from his solitary prison, only to be reunited with and then rejected by the love of his life. Before he was able to get a real handle on things, he had been once again been cast adrift; it seemed to be his fate to be alone. He should have known better. Some people just weren't meant for the whole, happily ever after thing. **

**He couldn't even be himself anymore. Thanks to that dammed freakish transporter accident, all that made him who he was had been stolen from him, even his name. Not even his memories were his own, except for those of the last eight years; and that was a time he'd just as soon not think about. His dreams of the life he had wanted, his dreams of the two of them together, were all he had left that belonged only to him. **

**He had always believed that they would be together one day. It had never occurred to him that, should they somehow meet again, they would not have a future together. Initially elated at having been saved from his lonely torment; and giddy with the awareness of her presence, he had wanted only to be with her once more. It was only later, when he had the time to think things through that he realized that she hadn't wanted to see him; that she would have avoided him if she could. **

**She had given him one night and he knew now that she had come to him because she felt his fear and confusion; and being her, she had a need to ease it. Unwilling to connect with him in the soul deep joining that he craved, she gave him what she could and shared her body with him. It was in that moment of intimacy, when he realized that she would not allow their souls to touch, that he lost what tenuous control he had over his emotions. She held him then, for several hours as he sobbed, as he begged her to love him, to touch him as he so desperately needed. Finally, he slept from exhaustion. **

**When he woke she was gone. He understood her need to keep herself separate and he couldn't blame her for holding back from him; the situation was just too bizarre for anyone to deal with and he was aware that she was hurting too. But he couldn't keep himself from loving her. He couldn't stop wanting her love to love him the way she had in his memories. And, he couldn't stop his dreams.**

**Even now, he still had difficulty wrapping his mind around the fact that she now loved another, identical Will Riker. Had it not been for her, he might have tried harder to fight for what should have been his by right. But, he could see that his struggles were causing her pain and he couldn't handle knowing he was the cause of her distress, so, he did the only thing he could. **

**He gave up and accepted the position on the USS Gandhi when they offered it to him, not because he wanted to, but because he knew how much it would hurt her if he didn't at least appear to try to resume living again. And he didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had. So, deciding to call himself by his middle name, Thomas; he did his best to begin again. **

**Just before they transported him away, he kissed her one last time, pulling her close, and opening himself fully to her, mentally reaching out to her in a final desperate attempt to touch the inner connection they had once shared. Blinking back tears of failure, he buried his sorrow deep inside himself, and looked up meeting the eyes of his brother self. He simply said: "Take care of her" before giving the command, "energize". He focused on her smile as the beam took him away.**


	3. Chapter 3 Where to go from here

Where to go from here…by Demi Elliott

**Note to all: The characters and S.T. Universe are not mine, but the dreams are.**

Tom lay on his bunk in the quarters he now shared on the USS Ghandi. He had the room to himself for now, and that suited him fine, especially as he was currently confined to his quarters for punching the First Officer. His roommate Danyel, a kid just out of the academy, who was still wet behind the ears, and just too enthusiastic for comfort, had gone to the mess, leaving Tom to his solitude. It had been six months since he had joined the ships crew and Tom was miserable and feeling sorry for himself.

Now, he waited in his quarters to be summoned for a conference with the Captain and he had an overpowering urge to talk to Deanna. He even attempted to place a call knowing that she would decline to accept it since, five months ago, when she worried that he was becoming socially isolated and too dependent upon her, she had begun to refuse his communications.

When he had first been assigned to the Ghandi, he had tried so hard to be a good Fleet officer; he wanted to get his career going again, hoping that if he could manage to get a quick promotion like his brother self, that Deanna would see that he was serious about the life he wanted to share with her. He needed to believe that she would come to him and he refused to let himself think that they would never be together; the thought was more then his heart could tolerate.

Difficulties abounded as he tried to reacclimatize himself to the rigors and expectations of the position of Lieutenant on a Starfleet vessel. In addition to the fact that he was years behind on current technology and Fleet procedures, he found that having been alone for so long, he balked at taking orders from others, most especially from the ships First Officer who treated Tom as if he were an inferior species and not fit to be onboard. Nothing Tom did seemed good enough and the Commander found fault no matter how much effort he put into his assigned tasks. Twice, now, Tom had let his anger get the better of him; and he had the reprimands in his Fleet file to show for it.

Things had come to a head last evening as Tom was socializing with some of his crewmates during dinner. It had become habit for them to catch the Fleet news broadcast during the meal since several of them had ongoing bets on a variety of different Federation sports events. Tom reveled in the comradeship after having spent such a long time with only himself for company and slowly was beginning to feel comfortable in his own skin again. He hadn't really been paying attention to the evening broadcast letting it fade to a low hum in the background amidst all the regular chatter and noise of the mess. But then he heard her voice.

It was Deanna's voice, straight out of his dreams, and he stood up, his heart racing, searching wildly around the room expecting to see her, before he recognized that her voice was emanating from the news viewer where she was in process of being interviewed. (Apparently, the senior officers of the enterprise were to receive yet another award from yet another grateful alien conglomerate.) Tom's focus narrowed; he was unaware of walking closer to the news viewer. Aware only of Deanna; he didn't even feel the tears running down his face as his heart broke all over again when he realized that she wasn't really present. Unable to move away, he watched her give a small speech as she sat alongside his brother self.

Frustration overwhelmed him; and he was raw with the agony of seeing her with his other. His dreams were crashing down about him and he let the rage overtake him. Overhearing the ships First Officer remarking about Tom being second rate compared to a brother with the lofty position as First on the Starship Enterprise was all the impetus it took. In his pain, Tom lashed out with the intent of wiping the smirk off the Commanders face. Eventually, their shipmates managed to pull him away but by then the damage had been done.


	4. Chapter 4 Nightmare's Reign

Nightmare's Reign by Demi Elliott

**Note to all: The characters and S.T. Universe are not mine, but the dreams are. **

Tom's meeting with his Captain had not gone well. Now, he was to attend Mandatory Counseling for an unspecified amount of time. Just the thought caused his stomach to spasm in distress. He swallowed hard against the sour taste invading the back of his throat. Blunt and to the point, the Captain had told him that further incidences of aggression and physical violence would not be tolerated and then ordered him to begin counseling sessions forthwith. Tom's only alternative would be to resign from Star Fleet.

And of course the Ghandi, being such a small ship, had no counselors among the medical staff so Tom soon found himself sitting for the required hour each day, across from a hologram. He found it incomprehensible that anyone realistically expected these sessions to be in any way helpful. As it was, he was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of sharing his intimate thoughts and dreams with anyone, much less some holographic facsimile. Deanna was the only person he'd ever truly been comfortable talking with and she, "for his own good" had continually rebuffed his efforts at correspondence for several months now.

Since he had kept the events of his previous life to himself, none of his shipmates (except for the captain and doctor) knew about the transporter malfunction, or how he had been ripped away from everything and everyone important in his life, and he'd told no-one about the way he'd lost Deanna. Verbalizing his loss would make it real and all he wanted was to wake up and have it all be a bad dream.

Most of the time, Tom felt alienated from his crewmates and he didn't spend much effort on trying to get to know any of them. It was far easier to remain on non-speaking terms, at odds with everyone, then to make a stab at developing any relationships that went beyond simple acquaintance. He didn't want to be the object of pity or worse, gossip fodder for the entire fleet.

In his better moments, Tom tried not to blame anyone for the unfortunate situation in which he found himself. But he'd been violated to the depths of his soul and the knowledge that he would never get back what had been his was more than he could cope with. So most of the time, he vacillated back and forth between anger and despair. He did his best to keep his emotions in check by relying heavily on the old "Riker" charm, learning what others expected of him, and trying to provide it, but there had been one too many episodes where he'd lost control.

His memories and dreams of Deanna were his only respite from the constant aching of aloneness. Knowing it was self-destructive, but desperate and needing so much to see Deanna, to hear her voice, he replayed the last communication he'd received from her over and over. He intently watched her eyes, her hands, and listened to the soft tone of her voice as she told him that she believed that it would be best for the two of them to have only minimal contact from now on, that it was important that he get on with his life.

It wasn't fair…he was falling apart and he needed her with him…..it wasn't fair…………………..


End file.
